Reliability of economic development data:
● Individual indicators can be misleading
○ Some aspects develop before others
○ A country might seem more developed than it actually is
● Extreme values or outliers can affect the average income for a person
● People might lie about their earnings
● Data might be hard to collect due to conflict or disaster
● Rapid migration → hard to know how many people live in a place
● Changing currencies even though all data is converted into US dollars
● Error and omissions → eg/ Nigeria did not include earnings from entertainment and internet until recently
● Using more than one measure of development avoids these problems ( HDI )
Limitations of data:
● GNI can provide a misleading picture of the actual average level of economic development
○ Hides the divisions of wealth
○ A few very wealthy people can boost the average
○ Makes it seem like the “average” person is a lot wealthier than they actually are
○ Money isn’t the only thing influencing development
● Birth rate –
○ Can be affected by population policies
■ eg/ China’s one child policy
○ Figures in LICs are not necessarily accurate
● Death rate –
○ Patient could still die after receiving expert care
○ Numerous factors affect this value
■ eg/ how sick the patient was when they were admitted
○ Doesn’t say what was responsible for the deaths
● Infant mortality rate – official data may be underestimated
○ In LICs not all infant deaths are recorded
○ Many children are buried in unmarked graves
● People per doctor –
○ In NEEs (eg/ India) people in rural areas use phones to get healthcare advice
○ This isn’t taken into account by “people per doctor” measure
● Literacy rate – difficult to carry out surveys in rural areas
○ Conflict zones
○ Squatter settlements in LICs
○ Dictatorial countries
● Access to safe water – official data may underestimate water problems
○ Water quality can decline due to flooding and poor maintenance
○ Rising cost of water in cities forces people to use unsafe sources
● Life expectancy –
○ Countries where infant mortality is high , can distort the average life expectancy for those who
survive childhood
○ Overall average is lowered
Correlations and trends:
→ Correlation = shows the relationship between 2 different things ; showing general trends
● Positive correlation [ / ]: countries with a high GNI tend to also have a high life expectancy
● Negative correlation [ ]: countries with a high GNI tend to have a low birth rate
Human development index:
→ Human development index = method of measuring development in which GDP per capita, life expectancy and
literacy rates are combined to give an overview
● Uses social and economical indicators to produce an index figure that allows comparison between
countries
● Additional criteria that aren’t covered by usual development measures
○ Human rights
○ Happiness
○ Gender inequality
○ Political corruption
● Instead of ^ , composite measures are used – combining different development measures into one → HDI
● Gives a value between 0 and 1
○ High human development = 0.8 – 1
○ Medium human development = 0.5 – 0.79
○ Low human development = < 0.5
● Global patterns:
○ Correspond with core and periphery theory
■ Core → high HDI
■ Periphery → low HDI
○ eg/ core, rural = London / periphery, urban = Cornwall
■ Countries with high HDI = North America, Europe and Australasia
■ Countries with medium HDI = Asia and South America
■ Countries with low HDI = Africa